By Will McGuirk

If you are wondering about that multicoloured skull sitting in the Kops Records shop in Oshawa, well, it is the skull of Halifax-based musician Rich Aucoin. It appears on his new album, Release, available on Dine Alone and of course for sale vis Kops.

We asked Rich . . . The Story Behind. .

”The record was originally going to be titled Death. I wanted a image that represented death while being colourful and joyful. I got Makerwiz to 3D print a life-size version of my skull and got artist Laura Dawe to paint it all the colours of the rainbow. The spectrum of colour represents a celebratory and joyous experience of life while the skull is both our unifier image as well as representing our unifying destination,” he says in an email.

Aucoin says he built the album around syncing up with Walt Disney’s classic animated feature ‘Alice in Wonderland’ - it covers the first two thirds of the film. The music and lyrics were created to reflect what is happening on screen.

For me the story of Alice is the metaphor for the world we live in right now, we have stepped through the looking glass (aka our phones) and are now trying to navigate this wonderland of volatile leaders and cats. We need a soundtrack and we need a release.